Mrs. Dearly sighed and dusted her hands by brushing them softly together. She was feeling positively exhilarated.
“It is not I who is clever, Lieutenant,” she said. “It’s you. What you have said is logical and rather convincing, I’m sure, but it is only a theory, and it will be quite exciting to see if you can prove it or not.”
But Mrs. Dearly’s exhilaration was only that of excitement, no more. The Lieutenant had no difficulty proving his theory — there was enough poison left in the pipe, and it wasn’t long before they found Douglas...
Six Reasons for Murder
Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1964.
Fanny Bauer had an idea how to kill Loren. It seemed like a good idea in the beginning, and the more she thought about it the better it looked. She got the idea from watching a late movie on television. This is not intended as a criticism of television, which already gets more than its share, but just shows you how simply a murder can sometimes begin.
If you have to blame someone, blame the Sioux — or the Cheyenne — or was it the Apaches? They were in the movie that Fanny saw, an old Western, and they took the hero, tied him up with wet rawhide thongs, and left him out in the sun. Wet rawhide shrinks as it dries, as almost everyone knows if he will only stop to think about it, and the idea was to make the rawhide cut into the flesh of the hero. It turned out that the hero was rescued by the United States Cavalry, but he was only tied by the wrists and ankles, anyhow, which would have been painful for a while, but not fatal.
What if a wet rawhide thong were tied around someone’s throat? Fanny thought.
She kept it impersonal to start with, sort of academic, and it wasn’t until later that the throat became Loren’s. She didn’t know if the Sioux — or Cheyenne or Apaches — had ever used this method to strangle a captive, for it wasn’t in the movie; but she did have a vague memory of having read about it in a mystery story sometime or other. The movie merely stirred up the memory of the story and so she couldn’t claim any originality for the idea — although it required, after all, a certain amount of cleverness to apply it.
And Loren Bauer was certainly an ideal subject. Or victim.
In the first place, as a retired political boss with a severe deficiency of ethics, he had made at least a hundred bitter enemies who would gladly strangle him if given the chance.
In the second place, he was now relatively vulnerable, having had a stroke that left him with legs that were practically useless.
In the third place, he was always taking some kind of drug for the relief of his physical discomfort or his conscience or both, and it would be quite easy to give him enough to knock him out, although not enough actually to kill him, because of what might be discovered post mortem.
In the fourth place, he was rich.
In the fifth place, it was beginning to look as if he were going on indefinitely refusing to die naturally, for his heart was sound, in spite of the stroke, and he adhered rigidly to his low cholesterol diet and had given up smoking.
In the sixth place, he was too old for Fanny by some thirty years, and it was high time he was discarded, if not replaced.
Six reasons for murder. Fanny could probably have added a few more, if pressed, but surely six were enough. She decided, after much thought, that she would discuss the matter in general terms with Stuart, who was Loren’s nephew. As a matter of fact, Stuart might have been Fanny’s seventh reason.
“I’ve thought of a way to kill Loren,” she said to Stuart one day.
“Your rate of production is low,” he said. “I’ve thought of a dozen ways.”
“If you’re so clever, why haven’t you done something about it?”
“Thinking and doing are two different things, honey. Doing is far too risky.”
“Well, my way, if properly executed, is hardly risky at all.”
“I’m intrigued, to say the least. What way do you have in mind?”
“I don’t believe I’ll tell you. You’re rather weak, however charming, and you’d only be a handicap in a touchy project like this.”
This suited Stuart perfectly. He always preferred, if possible, to profit from the efforts of others. As for Fanny, the brief conversation had the effect of making a plan, and the very next time she was downtown she went to a small leather shop on a side street and bought a strip of rawhide to be used, she explained, as a lacing. A minimum of research had taught her that rawhide was frequently used as lacing, and the purchase was routine.
She took the strip of rawhide home and put it in a basin in the basement to soak. It was necessary, of course, to wait for an appropriate day.
The year was still in the first half of June, and it had been, moreover, unusually cool. Then, just when one might have expected warmer weather, it began to rain, and it rained steadily for almost a week — a gray drizzle every day.
Fanny was impatient to get something accomplished, now that she had made a decision, and she was about to despair of ever having a warm fair day. She listened to the weather forecast each evening on radio and television, and even verified the daily forecasts by consulting the evening paper.
Finally, of course, the wet spell ended, and the mercury in thermometers began to climb, and the days became as appropriate as she could possibly ask for — appropriate for murder.
The day she chose was a Saturday. The cook and the maid left at noon for the remainder of the week-end, and Loren himself, ironically enough, made a certainty of what had been, so far, no more than a plan. He had his lunch in his wheelchair in the library, which was used for almost anything except reading, and later, just before the servants left, Fanny went in to get his tray and take it back to the kitchen.
“Do you know what?” he said.
“No,” Fanny said. “What?”
“I believe I’ll sit out in the sun for a while.”
Fanny was, naturally, quite pleased and excited by this opportunity, which required no clever maneuvering on her part; but she was careful not to seem too eager.
“It’s pretty warm out there,” she said. “In the eighties.”
“That’s all right. I need some sun for a change. I’ll come in when I’ve had enough.”
“Would you like me to push you out on the terrace?”
“Don’t bother. I can manage by myself.”
“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fix you a tall cold drink of something and bring it out to you. Would you like that?”
He said he would, which was his mistake, and Fanny went to fix him a tall cold anesthetic highball that contained incidental ingredients of citrus juice and gin and carbonated water. As a gesture of innocence, she asked the maid to take it to him on her way out of the house for the week-end, and five minutes later, seeing the cook off, she found the glass already half empty when she went out herself.
“It’s such a warm day,” she said, “I think I’ll go out to the Country Club and have a swim in the pool. Do you mind?”
“Go right ahead,” he said. “You’ll be all alone if I do.”
“I like being alone.”
“You aren’t expecting anyone?”
“No, I’m not. And if anyone comes, I’ll pretend I’m not here. You run along. Call Stuart to come pick you up, if you like. Being an escort is about ail he’s good for.”